1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with

1:01 p.m.: "It's time for Dodger baseball." Fans on the field for Photo Day frame Vin Scully in a pretaped segment. Scully tamps the hype, focusing on the Dodgers' need to avoid being swept by the Cardinals before mentioning Kershaw's debut.

1:05 p.m.: In another pretaped interview, for "Torre's Stories," Joe Torre is making a rather emotional appeal to renew interest in baseball among black players. Kershaw fever remains on hold at Fox Sports Net.

1:08 p.m.: "We know where his mom is sitting. She's directly below us in the second row, so we can watch her expressions and emotions as her son begins to crank it up." Vin then runs down Kershaw's vitals and names some other pitchers who have debuted at Kershaw's age or younger, some examples more encouraging than others (David Clyde!), all the way to Joe Nuxhall.

Troy Glaus
0-0 95 fastball outside corner called strike
0-1 73 curveball lollipop high
1-1 96 fastball swung on and missed
1-2 75 curveball right in there strike three called "Clayton Kershaw strikes out the side in his major league debut, albeit he did allow a run."

Third inning
The sun has broken through the clouds.Brendan Ryan
0-0 93 fastball fouled back
0-1 84 changeup low
1-1 95 fastball fouled back
1-2 73 curveball hanging, grounded to the hole in short for a clean infield single

Bottom of the third: Kershaw bats with one out. He twirls the bat in a fashion that calls to mind David Letterman twirling a pen on his fingers. He grounds to short. Dodgers go down in order. Cardinals 1, Dodgers 1.

Bottom of the fourth: With one out, Either singles and Martin doubles off the top of the center-field wall (less than four inches) to drive him in. A Loney groundout moves Martin to third, but a Kemp groundout strands him. Dodgers 2, Cardinals 1. Wellemeyer has thrown 67 pitches.

Fifth inningJason LaRue
0-0 93 fastball late swing but a single to right field

Cesar Izturis
0-0 92 fastball outside corner called strike
0-1 83 changeup grounded to second, Maza to Hu for the force, relay to first too late

Ryan Ludwick
Rick Honeycutt visits the mound. Cory Wade gets up in bullpen.
0-0 83 changeup high and outside
1-0 95 fastball grounded to third. DeWitt charges and fields. He throws home. A good throw gets him at the plate, but the throw is high and away from the runner, and Barton slides home. Fielder's choice, game tied 2-2.

Troy Glaus
0-0 95 fastball swung on and missed. Vin: "Good fastball. He's still throwing nice and easy."
0-1 95 fastball swung on and missed. "He's got plenty left in the tank," though pitch count limits will make this his last inning.
0-2 95 fastball high
1-2 95 fastball smashed foul, broken bat
1-2 75 curveball in dirt
2-2 95 fastball popped up to short right again, and again Maza with a tough catch

Five strikeouts came on fastballs (four swinging); two strikeouts on curveballs (one swinging).

Bottom of the sixth: Pierre singles, and Maza sacrifices him to second base. Ethier flies to left field, but Martin goes down and drives an RBI single to left. Kershaw gives Pierre an intense high five in the dugout. Dodgers 3, Cardinals 2.

And the young lefty is done for the day.

Kershaw to Martin: "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship."

Top of the seventh: A walk, a stolen base, a throwing error and a sacrifice fly against the Dodger bullpen takes Kershaw out of the decision. Cardinals 3, Dodgers 3.

* * *

I stopped live-blogging this game after Kershaw left, and it went into the 10th inning. Relievers Jonathan Broxton and Takashi Saito combined for eight strikeouts in 3 2/3 innings, and Joe Beimel struck out the only batter he faced, giving the Dodgers 16 strikeouts in 10 innings.

Ethier drives in the game-winning run in the bottom of the 10th, and the day ends happily for the Dodgers and their fans.

hmm, three strike outs to start the game, that ain't too bad. And the fact that the Cardinals keep fouling off pitches is also a good thing, because that means they can't make good contact. Except that Pujols character.

The first boyfriend was Bruce Altman, who by the rules of Hollywood, had to be an evil jerk

I've never seen the movie, but I assume I know what you're talking about. I'm always insulted by these scenarios because there's never any reason to believe that the person would have been with the jerk in the first place.

Man, it's not the worst thing in the world if Brad Penny is your worst pitcher. And to be fair, he actually had a pretty good outing last night. I think the Dodgers could have a heck of a last 2/3rds of the season.

Finally in front of a TV -- had to listen to the first 1 1/2 innings on radio.

Bob, in answer to your last comment on Loiaza, I was actually probably in violation of Rule #7, and I'm sorry if I seemed to be encouraging "when did you stop beating your wife" type questions.

I recognize the intense pride these players have. That's why players like Pierre and Garciaparra agitate to start even though they get paid either way, or why a guy like Schmidt keeps trying to get back, why Jones has played through what appears to be a hobbling injury and why Piazza waited til this week to retire, and Bonds has yet to do so. I'm sure Loiaza earnestly hopes he'll catch on with another team.

I just found the question to Torre about how Loiaza took the news, and then Loiaza's answer, to be kind of funny in ways that would be too boring to explain.

is it just me, I dont know numbers, but has attendance seemed to be down so far this season. I know the lakers are in full force again, but does anyone know numbers and how were stacking up to the rest of the league.

>>If you think its just the front office brass and fans who are excited about Clayton Kershaw, you're wrong.

Even the Dodgers players are excited about seeing Kershaw today and looking forward to playing with the much-hyped phenom, who dazzled them in the spring.

Chad Billingsley said he spoke with Kershaw on Saturday and told him to just do what he has been doing and not try to do too much, which would be easy to do. Billingsley also said he's excited about the potential 1-2 combo he and Kershaw will make in years to come.

"Everyone has heard all the talk about him and we wish him the best of luck and I hope we will be pitching together for years to come," Billingsley said.<<

254 yea good point, I was sorta figuring it would fill out even more in the thick of the summer night games. I absolutely love a warm evening game, when I went to that pitt. game where we exploded in the 1st inning the weather was perfect.

Just read through the follow up comments from the other day, in particular, about my "forest for the trees" comment, 176 (I think) a couple posts back. Let me try to clarify what I mean, since there seemed to be some confusion.

I tend to lean toward a holistic approach to analyzing baseball, if it's even subject to analyzing. While it's a very individualized game, the actions of each player are interconnected, and you can't understand what Ethier's line means without knowing about Martin's line, and then Loney's line, and so forth. So, looking at an individual player's performance takes things a bit out of context.

Beyond that, as I said, the analysis only tells us what has happened, not what will happen; particularly in a specific at bat... the old joke of Rick Monday saying that "Loney is hitting .457 with runners in scoring position in day games on the road after the fifth inning" is useless for the at bat. In fact, even saying he's hitting .323 for the year is meaningless for that one at bat. It's even meaningless for the 4 or 5 at bats that he'll get in the course of the game.

But then, I'm a social scientist by training, so numbers only tell me half (if that) of the story.

Five-inning totals: 75 pitches, 23 balls, 52 strikes, three hits, one walk, six strikeouts, seven groundouts, two airouts. Kershaw has thrown a total of 43 pitches (11 balls and 32 strikes) in the past four innings.

Does anyone else think that Maza is going to become another LoDuca in the eyes of the fans? A guy who is basically a career minor league that gets the call up and does well enough to earn a starting job?

Very very impressive performance. No breaks for him and a few against him and he still goes out with 2 runs and 7 strikeouts. Fastball is awesome as is the curve. Only thing he appears to need is something in between. That curveball breaks a ton but it seems like when they were looking for it, they could time it. If he had, say an 88 MPH slider and or an 84 MPH curve they couldn't sit on the curve (change?) so easily. Still, one of the most impressive young pitchers I've ever seen.

393. As I understand it, yes. I never got to see him pitch. Kershaw's curve breaks as much as any I've seen but a couple of times (especially Pujols' ABs) it really looked they were sitting on it and had it timed. If he could change speeds just a little more, I think he'd be like Gagne in his prime. His stuff is crazy good.

410. Didn't sound snarky, it was a fair point. I'm not sure I was distinguishing his curve and what I guess was a circle change. Seemed like he didn't throw many pitches between 80mph and 95 MPH. That makes it too "easy" to look fastball and adjust to the breaking ball.

Wow. Really disappointing defense today. Well, kind of the whole year really. But it was still a great performance by Kershaw, he looked great. Anyone else think he looks like Bedard? They're both lefty, their deliveries look really similiar, and they both throw hard with big curves.

To illustrate my point, Kemp has 1 extra base hit (a double) since he hit a home run on May 5. Thats basically 3 weeks of just signles from a guy 6'3 230. When was the last time he hit the ball hard to left field? I really cant even remember.

If you got Billingsley with a mid 20s pick and Kershaw with the 7th overall pick, you should be able to get someone who is better than Billingsley but not as good as Kershaw with the 15th pick. Oh, and make sure he is up in the bigs by no later than 3 years.

13 k's, 8 walks coming into today. I'd rather have the crummy ratio and power than a decent ratio and another Juan Pierre.

It really looks to me that his bat speed has slowed down big time. He's just trying to hit the ball and not do anything with it. He's making more contact nad walking more, but at a really really high cost.

He's not really hitting the ball to all fields. He's taking EVERYTHING the other way and only rolling over on offspeed pitches. Its an incredibly defensive approach that Juan Pierre should be using, not Matt Kemp. He has not pulled a ball with power the entire year, and i find that extremely concerning. His swings are not aggressive at all, and it shows in the power department.

It really isn't falling our way right now, and my predicted slump for Loney and Kemp in the first half may be coming true. But actually, for the things we have undergone and may yet undergoe, we are in fairly good shape, and I've always seen Loney, Kemp and LaRoche get hot together in the second half.

The way his approach is now, no, not with power. I'm concerned about his regression in that department. His approach has taken a complete 180, and its not a good approach for Matt Kemp to take. His aggrression at the plate is gone, and his emphasis on making contact, even weak contact, is not helping the team. Even with the new approach, he's still striking out almost once a game, but theres not even the power reward to go along with the strikeouts. Matt's my favorite player and has been for a while, and I've watched his growth for a long time. The guy at the plate for the last month or so looks nothing like the dynamic hitter I've gotten used to seeing.

Re: Kemp and Loney. Calm down! This Dodger team is not going to the World Series! It is a young team, a gifted team, but still developing. This year is going to be a roller coaster -- it has already. Some weeks we look like the best team in the NL. Other weeks we ... don't.

I'm much more annoyed with Brad Penny and Jeff Kent. But there's nothing you can do there but hope they stop stinking up the joint.

... I can understand the fact that Tiffee's up, but having Tiffee and Young just makes Sweeney redundant. Anyone know off-hand what Sweeney's contract status might be? Is he even eligible to be sent down, or not?

Wills would have been on third or possibly come in. I know--I can be a delusional old
something. Really, Pierre's speed would be more valuable if he got somewhere before the outs or wild pithces happen.

Pinch Hit for a .450 hitter with a .114 hitter.
Let a pitcher with 2 career AB hit for himself with a runner on after not double switching.
Have a .167 hitter (Jones) hit with 2 outs and a runner on 3rd when you have other options on the bench.

... This is the Joe Torre we got, sadly. I think if you'll take a look at some Yankee fan sites, like No Maas, you'll see that Joe was messing up games and situations for years before he came here.

I don't think anyone who actually has watched Torre has ever regarded him as a good tactician; his main attribute was his apparent ability to bring together talented players from other organizations and form a cohesive whole. Another attribute was his ability to deal with Steinbrenner well enough to keep his job as manager of the highest-paid team in the majors.

Just to think, in a year or so Kemp and Loney will have about as much experience as Martin and Ethier have now. What a team. And in another few years we will have to figure out how to pay them all. Damn, I can't seen to complete anything without becoming a pessimist.

587I am concerned about our starting pitching in two cases," Colletti says. "I had a nice chat with Derek the other day....I told him we're not slamming the door on him from coming back," Colletti says. "In Boston he might have known he was not coming back. Strange words from a man about to trade Lowe.

I'd rather we be agonizing over Kemp's lack of power as he tries to learn other facets of hitting than the alternative: speculating whether Kemp will ever "figure it out" like other notorious budding stars who became hackers... Beltre, Francoeur, etc.

Loney looks bad right now but so did David Wright when we played him. whatever.

Clay K is awesome. love how frequently he gets ahead of the count and how willing he is to throw his changeup to a premiere hitter like Pujols. so mature.

I love that the Dodgers seem like a family now. We have seen guys like Bison, Chad, Lonestar, Bull, Russ, Dewitt, Clay, Hu, Young, and Kuo grow up since they were drafted or signed. Ethier is an adopted son. 3 years ago this team was full of loveless mercenaries.

>> "For the most part, Terry doesn't swing at any bad pitches, and when he gets a pitch to hit, he hits it," Bundy said. "He's just locked in, and I've never seen a player be this locked in for that amount of time."

 NOTES -- Sergio Garcia started at second base Saturday for the 51s. It was Garcia's return from a 100-game suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance for a second time. ... <<

I didn't look up at what they were wearing until I heard that, but it didn't look like it matched particularly well. But I guess wearing something that Sager might wear is disconcerting regardless of degree.

>>"The one thing we told him when we sent him out to Double-A," Torre said, "was that we wanted him to use his offspeed pitches. We wanted him to be a pitcher and use everything as if he was getting himself ready for here."

Mission accomplished as catcher Russell Martin found out quickly.

"He shook me off once because he wanted to throw a changeup. I guess he wanted to prove to me that he had a good one. I started calling it more after that. He proved it."<<

I haven't read back through the comments yet, but I expect there was appropriate indignation about Kershaw being charged with an earned run in the sixth when his defense made two errors behind him, neither of which was actually ruled an error?

Matt Vasgersian and Mark Grant are talking about extra inning games, and brought up the 1989 Dodgers' two 22-inning games. They noted the 22-inning loss in Houston was followed the next night by a 13-inning game.

I looked it up on Baseball-Reference.com, and the next day (June 5) was a doubleheader! That's 53 innings in 3 days.

650. Murray's career flamed out? He did have to retire from baseball at some point ya know. And as for his actual playing days... he's in the hall of fame, right?
What, was I going to not say anything?

661 The next day's games were just as memorable as the 22-inning game. The Dodgers called up Ramon Martinez from Albuquerque to save the beleaguered pitching staff in the doubleheader. He pitched a complete-game shutout, the first of his career, and was promptly sent back to Albuquerque after the game.

Or at least that's the way I remember it. I think John Wetteland was also called up to start the other end of the doubleheader, although I'm less clear on that part. I do remember watching the games on TBS.

666
Wetteland was already on the club, and pitched 2 innings in the marathon game. He started and pitched 5 IP in game 2 of the doubleheader in Atlanta. Tim Leary, who started the marathon game and went 5.2 IP, pitched 3 in relief.

640---To me a dominant fastball is: High 90's, lots of action. I didnt see it today. And the Cards feed must have had a different gun than above because he just touched 94 and was sitting at 92/93 mostly.

He did located it perfectly on the low outside corner to the right handers though.

Reason #1,234,532 the Padres' military uniforms are awful: Having just tuned into the game, I thought the game was not yet over when the home run was hit, because the Padres were wearing their road grays (or in their case, road browns). Of course, it turned out they were wearing their road grays at home.

great fun watching Kershaw make his L.A. debut, here's for hoping he has a long & illustrious career with my boys in blue. a couple of correctible things I didn't like from Kershaw from my view is his pitch selection, I feel he could have put away batters with better pitch selection & like some others have mentioned the tempo of the game was VERY HURRIED, understandably so (debut & all...) but the overall diagnoses for me was, this kid can be very good... I'm telling you man, (no disrespect to the Cardinal pitcher) but it really seemed like he was throwing pure off-speed pitches compared to Kershaw, JMO.

one more thing that stud out for me, is that my friend goes to PLENTY of Dodger & Halos games & he says he always feels more at home at Dodger games then at Angels Stadium (just thought I sneak that in there) but overall it was really fun, thanks BH for the ticks!!

673 -- Gameday's radar gun is trustworthy. What we see on TV, usually isn't trustworthy. I saw the Cards' feed on Canadian TV yesterday and compared their gun to the Gameday gun. The Cards' gun was usually 3-4 MPH too slow. Today, Gameday had Kershaw's top fastball at 98 (to Ludwick in the first inning). Lot's of 94 to 97's, however.

another eye opening thing I noticed from Kershaw is the LATE LIFE on his fastball, some here had already mentioned it I think. It's a totally different prospective when you see a game live then when you watch it on the t.v. & to me, Kershaw just has a special arm man.

685 -- What I "know" and what I "believe" are two different things, strictly speaking, but I will tell you why I believe that the Gameday radar gun is accurate. For years I have read scouting reports on pitching prospects long before those pitchers get to the majors, let alone before I see them on TV. And when I would see them on TV, the radar gun used on TV would give FB velocities that seemed off compared to what I had read about their fastball velocity. Now, what I had read I knew to be information from professional scouts, the guys whose radar guns HAVE to be accurate if they want to do their jobs properly, and presumably not get fired. Anyway, since seeing the velocities on Gameday I notice that that information seems consistent with the scouting report information, ergo, I think the Gameday information is correct when it differs from what I see on the TV radar guns.

687 - I second that, Bills is close though at times. Being there in person you could see Kershaw's fastball was tremendous and it just jumped off his hand. The crowd absolutely ate up his curve ball. A lefty who throws 97 on the inside corner at the knees should be declared unconstitutional. Incredible experience today at the Ravine.

If you are the type who insists that Blake DeWitt is a better player than Andy LaRoche, then please disregard the following.

I really fail to understand the rationale behind playing DeWitt over LaRoche. As articulated by Jon and others, the argument is that DeWitt should get to play until he shows he can't handle the major leagues.

I have DeWitt's equivalent wOBA's for 2005-2007 as .254, .273, and .271. His wOBA in 148 PA in 2008 is .352. Let me reiterate the 148 PA part. If DeWitt, who has 21 hits on 63 groundballs (Ichiro, widely known as baseball's best GB hitter, has a career batting average of .301 on GB's), had just three fewer singles, his wOBA would be .333 (league average).

If we were to aggressively age retro-adjust DeWitt's numbers to give him .20 points of wOBA for each year removed, that gives him .314, .313, .291. Let's just get silly and say we would expect him to be a .315 hitter coming into the year. His .352 this season would then be enough for us to call him a .325 hitter.

LaRoche has equivalent wOBA's of .322, .356, and .336 the last three seasons, with .372 so far in Vegas. So even if we don't age adjust at all, LaRoche has a .339 projection coming into 2008. Even if we discount his 2008 by half since it is not in the majors, it still improves his projection to .343. So giving DeWitt the benefit of every doubt and LaRoche the benefit of none, I have him as 9 runs better per season with the bat.

So what does DeWitt's seasonal line have to look like to make the switch? Does dropping below league average cut it? If that's the cut-off, then if DeWitt is the .325 hitter that we've generously made him out to be, it will take him 352 PA to do that. So if DeWitt is consistent and not a cipher, then you lose more than 5 runs by not replacing him with LaRoche under the above ridiculously DeWitt-biased assumptions.

If DeWitt slips under league average because he has slumped (that is, hits very poorly in a small number of PA), then obviously it would have been much better to have LaRoche playing during that time, and I hope I don't have to elaborate this point. So if DeWitt slips under .333 with 100 PA of .304 hitting, then not using LaRoche for those 100 PA costs (again, using an anti-LaRoche LaRoche projection) three and a half runs. If it's 40 PA of .262 wOBA, then it's 2.8 runs.

To avoid disturbing anyone, I will refrain from crunching the numbers on the two hitters' actual projections.

Consider the logical circle created by a remark I saw earlier (I don't remember if it was at DT or elsewhere). A poster argued that calling up LaRoche to platoon with DeWitt makes no sense because DeWitt has hit better against LHP this season. If DeWitt's .394/.500/.697 line against LHP in 40 PA is enough to base a decision off of, then surely his .277/.324/.396 line against RHP is indicative of his talent against RHP, right? Perhaps we should have a reverse DeWitt/LaRoche platoon! The point is, just as his platoon split is based on a tiny, tiny amount of data, so is his entire season.

I am fine with those who think it is not worth complaining about because the Dodgers will not change it and are old school etc. But I am only fine on condition that people acknowledge it is a BAD move. Whenever DeWitt hits his slump, I do not want to hear that the Dodgers made the inevitable move; I want to hear that they made the WRONG move in not giving LaRoche the job that he has earned twice over and instead giving it to someone who hasn't earned a quarter of it.

The Dodgers are using ridiculous conventional wisdom (DeWitt is hitting well now!) to drown out more sensible conventional wisdom (players should not lose their jobs because they missed time to injury). Are they supposedly doing this on the basis of actual scouts? Not as far as I've heard. If they are, who are these scouts, and what is their track record? I think they're doing it based on THE NUMBERS. Blake DeWitt's numbers, to be precise. In doing so, they are revealing that they are highly ignorant about how to interpret and regress baseball statistics (obviously, this is not exactly a new revelation).

This really irks me. If you are going to marginalize actual statistical analysis in player evaluation, you do not get to use cockamamie statistical factoidism to negate scouting data! Period. Or exclamation mark. Some form of punctuation indicating the end of the sentence.

Plus, if you think that DeWitt is good and want him in your lineup, then it is obvious that he should be taking reps at 2B in AAA unless you really think he can't handle it defensively. And if you think he can't handle it defensively, you either a) think he is a bad fielder at 3B or b) have a very distorted idea of the difference in skill level between fielding those two positions. If it's a), then that's just one more reason LaRoche should be starting over him.

Why DeWitt at 2B instead of LaRoche? First, he has a smaller frame and will probably be the better defender of the two at 2B. Second, he has played there in the minor leagues, and not long ago. I have no idea why many on DT think LaRoche has played 2B in the minors - can someone explain this to me? Third, and this one is pretty big, he is a left-handed hitter. DeWitt/Kent is a reasonable platoon; LaRoche/Kent is not. I guess you could do DeWitt at 3rd and LaRoche at 2nd against RHP and LaRoche 3B / Kent 2B against southpaws, but what exactly would the point be? If the goal is to make the 2008 team better with DeWitt, then 2B is the obvious destination. Fourth, I don't know why you would want your elite prospect whose biggest demerit is health concerns to switch positions and increase his injury risk. Fifth, DeWitt can always move back to 3B. If ultimately LA doesn't think he can handle 2B, why don't they keep that to themselves and get better trade value out of him by giving him more time at 2B?

The Dodgers are betting heavily that DeWitt is much better than we have any reason to expect him to be. DeWitt is talented enough that that's an intriguing bet with long odds. But the odds are even - so why?

p.s. Question for Bob or anyone else: can you name any previous battles for playing time between two players with last names (in their anglicized variants, anyway) where the third letter is capitalized?

p.p.s. It is cringeworthy enough to hear one of my favorite bands ever, Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band, in a commercial, but what the heck does "Express Yourself" have to do with 'letting' Dodge pay part of your gasoline bill?

To me a dominant fastball is: High 90's, lots of action. I didnt see it today. And the Cards feed must have had a different gun than above because he just touched 94 and was sitting at 92/93 mostly.

I don't know what gun you were watching but the Dodgers telecast and gameday both had Kershaw touching 97 and 93-96 almost always. That, combined with the movement and location, is a dominating fastball.

What starting pitchers do you know regularly sits in the high 90s? (97+)?

Felix Hernandez...who else? Maybe Verlander but not this year. Kershaw's fastball was excellent today, his curve was just decent, as he couldn't throw it for strikes as much as he should have. He was very bold throwing his change up so much, especially when it clearly lacks behind his other two pitches. Its going to be a good pitch though...my God, he is only 20 years old.

687 I think Billingsley's fastball is a little better, especially in movement, but Clayton seems to locate his better. What I was impressed with is his curveball. I've commented before that I didn't think it was much better than Billingsley's, but after today I'm going to have to disagree with myself. If he can continue to throw it for strikes, look out.

693 -- I think Kershaw's fastball is much better than Billingsley's. Keep in mind that a right-hander is expected to throw harder than a left-hander. According to Fangraphs, Billingsley's average fastball this season has been 91.6 MPH. A really BAD fastball from Kershaw is as slow as 91. Flat out, Billingsley does NOT have an electric arm. He simply throws "pretty hard" for a guy who has a good curveball and cutter and a decent feel for pitching.

691 - I would basically say that I believe, based on their track records, anything Blake can do, Andy can do better, but to sub Blake out at this moment would be just a disaster, as 99 percent of people would expect Andy to outperform Blake's current level and be ready to dump him if he didn't.

To me, I would start giving Blake starts at 2B with LaRoche at third. I know this really aggravates some people who feel it's a dumb or disrespectful to move Blake off a position he has earned, but as I've said before, if the Dodgers and their fans just have the attitude they've shown themselves capable of with DeWitt and Martin at third base - "we'll just take what we can get" - then there should be no pressure on DeWitt as far as the transition. Because there's a real issue at 2B with Kent. DeWitt has just the kind of moral support to help address that problem, even if just a temporary solution.

I'm not opposed to LaRoche trying at second, but the reasons Tom outlines are more or less the reasons I think DeWitt is a better choice.

Got to see the game on Tivo tonight. Wow, Kershaw is good. I'm guessing he stays up for a while. This was a rare occasion when I knew ahead of time I really wanted to see a game, and I felt after watching that it was every bit as historic as I had hoped.

I was pleased to see Tiffee wearing #13. Great number for a guy who likely won't be up long.

699 I wasn't trying to say that I thought Billingsley threw harder than Kershaw. I just think he has a lot more movement. In other words I think he may have the best 91mph fastball in the league. As far as being expected to throw harder as a righthander, I don't see how that matters at all. 97mph is 97mph, no matter which hand it comes out of. Hitters have a hard time hitting Billinglsey's fastball when he throws it for strikes. Control is the difference between these two pitchers.

701 -- Something to do with the scientific implications of righties far out-numbering lefties in the general population, combined with baseball's love for left-handedness leading to a culling of the herd of available right-handers till the hardest throwers are left.

711 They just are. Honestly, Jon, it's just the way things are. It's been this way since time immemorial. Lefties are thumbers, man. They're just off-speed having, three-quarters throwin' freaks of nature.

I suppose one of these days LaRoche will be a regular somewhere and I certainly hope so. In the mean time I feel lucky to merely be a disinterested supporter of LaRoche. Trying to will Loney into the lineup last year was no fun at all.

I suspect Loney will be getting one or two days off soon to get his groove back.

711 I agree with your questions on left handers. They make no sense to me either. It's like saying Kershaw is expected to throw harder than Billingsley because he's from Texas. Texas pitchers throw harder than Ohio pitchers.

702 -- Yes, I want Hicks or Melville. They both carry risks. But I like the "reward" half of the risk/reward equation with those guys.

BA still ranks Melville higher than Ethan Martin and Odorizzi. Melville reminds me of Phil Hughes. Just the perfect size. If he is a bit raw now, fine, that is what the development part of our organization is for. And I'll say that I like Melville's delivery better than Odorizzi's too. Odorizzi looks more like second round material to me. Physically he seems a bit "stiff." Remember, scouting high schoolers is about projecting into the future, not looking at who is having the better high school season.

On Hick, yes, I fear he MIGHT not hit, so there is that downside, but if he DOES hit? Wow. Five-tool center fielder.

What I am saying is that I think we are in the perfect position, with all our young talent, to avoid playing it safe in the draft. To gamble a bit. Plenty of other teams couldn't do that. The Dodgers can.

already a mechanics analysis on Kershaw. he grades out as excellent in every category except a "poor" in tempo, a category that author admits is least important and probably not worth correcting considering Kershaw's already outstanding mechanics.

drivelinemechanics is run by KyleB, who I know from the poker forum twoplustwo, he is quite smart. Huge stathead and he is trying to analyze pitchers using less traditional influences such as the Mike Marshall school, its interesting. He has done an analysis on Kuroada earlier. I emailed him a request for Billingsley.

despite all the medical/mechanics jargon that I cannot understand, I am quite excited for his prognosis. :)